Windows 7 RC (7100) x64 Part One – No Inplace Upgrades!

I am terrified at the fact that I have to do a rebuild of my whole system, especially when a new build of Windows 7 is released. Its not that I lack the knowledge, it is simply that I lack the time to rebuild my entire system. I have been using Windows 7 since Build 7000 and doing in place upgrades every time a new build was leaked. While I love knowing that I am on the bleeding edge, I hate fearing what I may be missing from a fresh rebuild.
The RC or build 7100 was finally leaked last week at some point and here I was again upgrading from an older build to the RC. I backed up and off I went…I did this on two production systems. One is a MAC Pro with Bootcamp (the best pc in the world) and one is my lenovo x301.
The upgrade ran as smooth as it could (upgrading from build 7077) and in about 1hr I had both systems running build 7100. Everything looked fine to me and I did not really notice any major changes. But alas, I missed something….the control panel, when pinned to the task bar, should be showing me a jump list of most commonly used applications; it was not. Various other mild issues started to occur as system hangs on shutdown, and reboots, etc. I had a problem!
I ended up starting with my Lenovo and doing a full rebuild with build 7100 x64….yes I backed up!! The full install took about 22 minutes (according to my timer) and voila, my options were intact and the issues with shutdown/restart had disappeared. Yes, this could be related to some strange software phenomenon, but I generally rule that out since I only use basic software for my builds…especially on a BETA OS.
The next step will be to format and re-install 7100 x64 on my MAC Pro and see how that makes out….keep checking and I will post my results as soon as I can.
I would like to give a ‘shout out’ and a thank you to Paul Thurott at The Supersite for Windows . His reviews are instrumental and the screen shots are awesome as well.
More later, but for now do NOT upgrade…just bite the bullet and do a fresh install.